


The Taste of Chaos

by Pirili



Category: SHINee
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Fantasy, Romance, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-08-25 04:35:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16654357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pirili/pseuds/Pirili
Summary: After losing her boyfriend and fighting a depression, Anna decides to spend some time with her aunt and uncle in their ancient western mansion near a small forgotten village. Soon weird things start to happen around the house, a shadow visits her in her sleep warning her that her death is coming, and Anna meets her mysterious neighbor Taemin and gets tangled in something much more dangerous and dark than depression.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first try at writing something more "dark" and mysterious. Also my first full Taemin fic. 
> 
> My friend, to whom I gifted this story, presented me with a book of it with illustrations made by her that you can see in the story. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it.

 

_The path I’m trying to go back is a maze_   
_The wind that brushes against my cheeks_   
_I open my arms up above It doesn’t matter_   
_I need an angel’s hand_

_– Soldier –_

 

Taemin came out from the bathroom and leaned against the wall trying to regain his full consciousness. He was happy since he nailed the contract to build his dance academy. It was always his dream to have one. Though he was young and many told him that he should be dancing instead of opening a business; that he didn’t have the entrepreneur blood running on his veins, he didn’t care. If he had his academy, if he could surround himself with the best teachers and teach at the same time he would get better and learn more.

Yes, he was ambitious but he also knew that hard work was the only way to reach his dreams. He walked in the corridor, his hand sliding on the cold wall, helping him walk without falling.

He was never good with alcohol and that night he was drunk like he was never in his entire life, yet he felt like he was the king of the world.

Great Mistake!

A few hours later he woke up in total darkness.

He opened and closed his eyes wondering what happened since he didn’t have many memories of it. He wasn’t drunk anymore and yet something was clouding his mind.

He wanted to sit and he could move his body if he wanted but somehow it didn’t feel like his body at all. Taemin touched his naked torso and was surprised by the temperature of his skin. He was burning but he was sure he didn’t have a fever.

Where was he anyway?!

He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came. He panicked and that was when the memories came back to him: the flashing light and the pool of blood growing in the middle of the ground around him.

Taemin opened his mouth to scream, his nails scratching the skin of his throat because still, no sound came out.

It was a fact. He was dead!

 

 

Anna paid the taxi driver and held her travel case while she saw the taxi leaving, a trail of dust left behind by the tires while it disappeared in the distance.

She turned around to face her new home and looked at it with hopeful eyes.

That wasn’t exactly what she expected, what her aunt told her about.

It was supposed to be an antique western house, a work of art like her uncle, the man who married her aunt five years ago used to call.

To her, it was more like a rundown house being eaten by termites and with probably too many holes in the roof that let the rain fall inside.

She smiled though, being her positive self.

Well not quite.

Her past positive self.

The truth was that she was running away. After her best friend and almost boyfriend died one year ago she fell into depression and lost her job as a social worker. 

Helping people was always what she wanted to do but after he died, after losing her best friend she lost her ground.

It wasn’t as if she was going to marry him. Yes they were living together and she pictured living all her life with him but she always knew that what she felt for him was more than a fraternal love than the real thing. He knew it and still, he stayed by her side.

He did so that she wasn’t able to accept his death even after one year.

Thankfully her uncle suggested for her to stay with them for a few months, away from the busy Seoul and live with them in their old house in the middle of the forest.

They didn’t have many neighbors but Anna could spot a similar house down the road near a cliff.

That was a strange place to live too.

“You are here!” Her aunt screamed coming out from the front door and running to Anna with open arms.

She was her only living family, her mother’s sister and Anna hugged her back, trying to master her best smile.

She saw her uncle coming down the stairs and she bowed at him. He grabbed her bag and Anna followed after the couple inside the house.

It was funny. She hoped that spending time away from her apartment, the one she sold because there were many memories of her _boyfriend_ there, was going to take that heavy weight away from her heart. However once she stepped inside the house and let her eyes wander on the old pictures on the wall to the old stairs leading to the second floor and then finishing on the old piano that she could see on the living room on her right, it was as if something took hold of her, squeezing her heart.

“Do you want to eat anything?” Her aunt asked gently while Anna’s uncle climbed the stairs with her bag.

“Thank you I’m famished!” Anna accepted walking after her aunt, her eyes still wandering to the lonely piano as if there was something about it that attracted her.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shadow visits Anna at night.

 

 

 

 

_Another night, I’m connected with you_   
_One night, belonging to no one_   
_This quite too transparent thread of fate_   
_Makes me excited heartily_   
_Dancing as if I’m wandering in a dream_   
_You who make me be alive_   
_Go ahead, Taste my heart_   
_I tempted as I desired_   
_deeply, fully inside my heart_

_\- Mystery Lover -_

 

Anna bid goodnight to her uncles and climbed the stairs of the old house, stopping on the middle of it on the slightly bigger step where the stairs turned in another direction and raised her eyes to the big window by her side. The moon was really beautiful, her light illuminating the woods around the house and the place where her uncle had the kennels where he kept his two jindo dogs.

Anna loved animals, she was always a little afraid of dogs but still, they seemed very friendly and cute and she was eager to go for a walk with them the next day. She was going to resume climbing the stairs when she saw it.

It seemed like a shadow of a man near the other lonely house near the cliff. She furrowed her eyes trying to see better but the shadow disappeared suddenly.

“Is everything ok?” Her aunt asked from down the stairs and Anna turned to her.

“Sure. I was only admiring the moon!”

“You can see it clearly from here!”

Anna nodded and once again said her goodnights before climbing to her bedroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her bedroom was very simple and old and yet it was perfect for her months of self-healing.

She bathed and lied down on her bed falling asleep quickly.

However soon she felt someone watching her.

It was like a shadow walking around the bedroom in her direction. That shadow stopped near the window, the moonlight bathed her but it didn’t stop and walked closer and closer to her, making so that no moonlight was illuminating Anna anymore.

Her heart was beating fast and yet she wasn’t sure if she was scared.

The shadow moved his hand to her head and that’s when she woke up. Anna sat on the bed and moved her eyes around the bedroom. No one was with her inside the room and yet she was almost sure that someone was there.

She lied down on the bed again and sighed deeply trying to calm down her heart. It was only a nightmare.

 

Anna walked around her aunt’s property and decided to sit near the kennels with her small blue notebook. She was never a writer but sometimes she liked to write her thoughts on it. She opened it and decided to write about her weird dream first. She was so concentrated doing so, that one of the dogs barking scared her.

She let the pen fall to the ground and stood up from the broken tree trump to grab it. That’s when she felt it. It wasn’t the shadow but someone or something was watching her. She quickly stood up forgetting the pen and her eyes scanned the house.

There was no sign of life there and she swallowed nervously squatting again to grab the pen, her eyes still on the house.

Anna closed her notebook and decided to explore the property a little more. Maybe if she knew the house better she would stop having those uneasy thoughts about it.

So she walked around the house, stopped to admire the small garden her uncle was planting and then decided to walk back to where the dogs were.

She passed by a huge box where her uncle did the home composting and she noticed something strange near it.

Anna grabbed the piece of fabric realizing that it was an apron. It was red and she looked at it for a while until realizing that she was mistaken. She let it fall to the ground when she noticed that it was, in fact, white and that was blood, an awful lot of blood.

“What are you doing?” Her aunt asked and Anna stuttered pointing at the apron.

“Its blood…it’s filled with blood!”

Her aunt tilted her head not understanding the big deal “Yes it is. That was used by one of the girls that used to help us around the house. One day we found one of the dogs dead and she disappeared. That’s the dog blood. She was crazy!”

Anna blinked her eyes “Did you tell the police?”

“Police? For a dog? No. She probably ran away with one boy from the village.” Her aunt approached Anna “I found a box of condoms in her bedroom once.”

Anna pursed her lips, not surprised by her aunt’s old mentality.

“I see…”

If she only knew how Anna used to give free condoms a lot to the girls who often came to the Help Center where she worked or the fact that she also used to keep condoms on her purse. It was better if she hid them from her aunt’s eyes. Not that she intended on using them…

“Let’s go inside. It’s getting dark and nights here can be chilly!”

 

Anna was sleeping again. However this time she had her eyes open in her dream and she was waiting for the shadow to come.

It didn’t take much to happen and she sat on her bed, inside her dream.

She couldn’t see the shadow since everything was fuzzy but she knew it was there in the corner of her bedroom, hiding in the darkness and watching her.

Anna opened her mouth and tried to speak “Are you real or am I really dreaming?”

Nothing happened for a while and she wondered if she was right but then the shadow spoke.

“It’s a dream.”

It was a young’s man’s voice and not as scary as she expected.

 “You are the one watching me.” She could feel the eyes of the shadow on her the whole day “Why are you watching me?”

“Because I need you!”

Anna swallowed with uneasiness but she needed to know “You need me? For what?”

The shadow didn’t answer and she gripped the covers of her bed “Who are you? What’s your name?”

“I’m a nightmare.” His voice was too sweet to be scary though “My name is Taemin.”

She repeated the name to herself inside her head. “I am not afraid!” She said, without realizing, because it was true. She wasn’t!

“You should be! In the end, you will die in this house.”

His words send a shiver down her spine as if he saw what was her future and had no doubt about it.

“You will kill me?”

“Leave the house!” The shadow said angrily, the order or warning echoing through the bedroom and making her head hurt.

Anna closed her eyes and covered her ears and then when she opened them again she had woken up from the dream.

She sat on the bed and turned the lamp on her bedside table.

The room was empty but the window of her room was open. She stood up quickly, certain that she let it closed when she lied down on the bed and run to it.

She saw the shadow disappearing in the middle of the woods that connected the house she was staying to the one on the cliff.

Who is Taemin and what he wants from her?


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna gets suspicious of the house when weird things start to happen to her. Taemin and Anna have their first conversation.

 

_**I hold my breath, but when I approach you it’s a Trap** _

_**Even though you hide in the darkness I can clearly see your cards** _

_**The moon peeks out and shakes your thin shoulders** _

_**I can never go to sleep again** _

_**I stay up all night Shine on us** _

_**\- Guess who –** _

 

Anna helped her aunt wash the dishes from lunch and they were both tidying up the rest of the kitchen.

“Don’t you get bored of living here?” Anna asked while she swept the floor.

“No. It’s very quiet and not that far from Seoul that we can’t go there once in a while. Your uncle goes there once a week to take care of his businesses like he did today.”

Anna peeked outside the window as if to confirm that his car wasn’t parked at the usual spot.

“I don’t understand why he bought this house when he has so much money. You could live in a mansion with a lot of employees, no?”

Her aunt chuckled cleaning her hand on a dishcloth. “Not really. He isn’t that rich. We have enough to survive and plus he fell in love with this house. He plans to rebuild it and we had a girl helping me around the house. I told you, she ran away with a boyfriend.”

Anna scratched her nose, the dream from yesterday and the weird sensations coming back to her.

“About this house…” Anna asked looking at her aunt that was taking off her apron. “Do you know the story of it?”

“The story? Like the previous owners?”

“Like as if it is haunted.”

Anna’s aunt laughed. “What nonsense. Sarang, who worked here used to say the same thing. Did you see any ghost?”

Anna pursed her lips thinking. Her aunt was right, she didn’t see anything. A dream and the feeling of being watched wasn’t enough to prove that something was wrong with the house.  She wasn’t the type to believe in ghosts too, but she couldn’t deny their existence either.

“I didn’t see anything!” She end up answering and her aunt brushed the subject away.

 

 

 

That afternoon Anna decided to go for a walk and took both the dogs with her.

Maybe the shadow was right. It was probably a product of her imagination but she actually felt better outside the house, as if a big weight left her.

She walked around the house and then entered the woods, following the dirt road to the house on the cliff. She wasn’t sure why she decided to go that way, but it had probably to do with the shadow called Taemin from the previous night.

She didn’t walk for long and she was going to go back because the weather was too hot and her long white dress wasn’t helping. Next time she decided to go for a walk she would bring a hat and shorts.

She was thinking about that when she saw a man.

He was thin and tall and was wearing a black t-shirt over black ripped pants, his hair was blonde and he wasn’t even looking on her direction, too busy, almost at the edge of the cliff admiring the view.

Anna who almost turned back home decided to walk in the direction of the man. The two dogs followed after her but stopped when they noticed the man, growling and barking at him.

The young man turned around and for a few seconds Anna and the man looked at each other.

Then he walked in her direction with a hand on his pants pocket and stopped a few meters from the dogs.

He crouched and called the dogs to him and they did so in a very obedient way surprising Anna.

Was he a dog enchanter?! What was that?

The man raised his eyes to her and she almost followed the dogs, running to him too. That was how powerful his charisma was.

She watched the man pat the dogs and then he stood up and turned around completely ignoring her presence. Anna noticed how he had his ear pierced, how handsomely he walked as if he danced instead of walking.

She stood there with the dogs admiring him until he disappeared inside the house on the cliff.

Anna blinked her eyes feeling like an idiot and then turned back calling the dogs, going back home.

 

 

 

Later Anna asked her uncle about the neighbor. Both were on the living room couch, with him reading a business-related newspaper and Anna trying to read her book, a silly romance that was very boring to her.

“Who lives in the house on the cliff?”

Her uncle, a man with black hair and an easy smile raised his grey eyes to her. “No one. I never saw anyone around there.”

“Are you sure? I saw a young man today and he definitely entered the house.”

“The owner left it a long time ago and moved to Seoul with his two sons. At least that’s what I heard when I came to buy this house. The other one was for sale too.”

He turned the page of his newspaper.

“Then maybe someone bought it.”

“Maybe…” He didn’t seem happy with the prospect of having a neighbor.

Anna tried to get back to her romance but she felt her uncle’s eyes on her so she looked at him.

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing. I was just wondering if you like living here with us?” He asked smiling.

“Yes, very much! Thank you.”

He rose up, bid her goodnight and Anna stayed alone in the living room.

She sighed playing with her long black hair and closed the book feeling bored.

She wasn’t entirely honest. She wasn’t enjoying that much. The house felt too cold and not in a good way and after her walk that afternoon she was once again sure that something wasn’t right with that house and it affected her somehow.

She wondered why no one felt the same as her. That constant impression of being watched, a cold presence behind her, a heavy dreadful feeling and...

The piano played and Anna stood up scared.

The piano was a few steps away from her, closed with no one playing and yet she could hear it.

Anna paled releasing the book on the couch and walked to the piano slowly, the sweet, happy melody that she didn’t recognize still being played. She opened the piano and the keys moved alone for a while until they stopped.

“Are you playing?” She turned around just to see her aunt at the door. “I didn’t know you could play!”

“I-I didn’t…” Anna answered nervously staring at the piano. “It played alone!”

Her aunt laughed “I have a magic piano now?” She walked away still laughing at Anna’s “joke” and Anna stepped back from the piano.

Something was definitely wrong with that house.

 

 

 

That night Anna was ready. She wasn’t scared of the shadow. She was going to wait for him.

She opened the window of her bedroom and then lied down on the bed closing her eyes, pretending to sleep.

Soon she heard a very low sound and she sat on the bed.

The shadow was there at the same place, she was sure of it.

“Are you there?” Anna whispered.

“Did you wait for me?”

He moved in the darkness and the fuzzy image showed that she was dreaming again. Somehow she must have fallen asleep. Anna scolded herself before speaking again “I did. Am I really dreaming?”

“Yes.” Taemin answered “You need to leave this house…Anna.”

She wasn’t even surprised that he knew her name and she stood up from the bed and walked in his direction. “I want to see you.”

He stepped further into darkness as if he was afraid of her reaction when she saw him.

“You can’t!”

She stopped a few steps from him “Why?”

He didn’t answer and Anna gave an extra step in his direction. “You were the one who played the piano didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it.” Somehow she did. His presence felt different from the other one that watched her every move.

She was going to say something else when he suddenly grabbed her arm with strength.

She complained when his fingers wrapped around her wrist in a deadly grip. His pale arm and burning hand, lightened by the moonlight, made her step back.

“Wake up…” he said desperately.

“What?” Anna asked trying to pull away from his grip.

“WAKE UP!” He screamed “NOW!”

He didn’t release her and Anna gulped grabbing his hand on her wrist. His skin was so hot.

“I warned you!” Taemin’s sweet voice said. He looked to the door; she felt it even if she couldn’t see his eyes “QUICK NOW…he is coming for you. CLOSE THE DOOR NOW!”

That’s when Anna woke up with her heart beating crazily. She quickly stood up and walked to the door of her bedroom locking it with the key.

She panted knowing that she was alone in the bedroom and silence filled it.

Nothing happened and she leaned against the wall next to the door wondering about what just happened. Maybe she was taking those dreams too seriously; maybe that shadow didn’t even exist and was all a product of her imagination.

Maybe her sickness didn’t go away and she was still depressed, maybe she was having visions now.

She was going to get back to bed when a small noise made her look in the direction of the door.

The doorknob moved and Anna panicked knowing that someone was on the other side trying to get in.

Maybe she didn’t dream at all.

“Aunt?” She asked in a whisper and the knob stopped immediately.

Anna waited for a few heartbeats that looked like hours and then walked to the door, leaning her ear against the wood. Silence.

She wondered if she should unlock it but Taemin desperate scream from her dream made her hesitate just enough for her to change her mind.

Instead she walked to the window and searched for the familiar shadow in the woods. There he was, watching her in the darkness.

Anna returned to her bed and hugged herself under the covers. She didn’t sleep that night, but she also didn’t close her window. 


End file.
